Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Oregon Refuge Standoff, and the Derp of Knee-Jerk Politics

Well, the fifth day of the year is almost over, and I've yet to blog once! I guess that tells you about my waning desire to blog of late. Utterly committed to keeping it going, but very low on the blogging bug. Too bad I never managed to monetize the thing, that might have done the trick! Annnnyway. . . .
The one thing capturing my attention (especially with sheer boredom setting in with the pre-Iowa, post-never-ending-months-of-campaigning 2016 battle) is the Oregon standoff. It's funny. It's stupid. It's absolutely larded with misinformation, complete with a compounding and conflicting back-story. And the best part is, this is the best they could do.

Don't believe everything you read. Particularly in a Facebook meme.

For years now, the fringy-fringe of the increasingly mainstream fringe of the conservative-Republican-Libertarian side of politics have been threatening revolution. Whether it's over legal gay marriage, abortion, gun "grabbing," government overreach, race wars. . .pick one or all. They've been threatening "2nd Amendment Solutions." The loons over at FreeRepublic have been itching for Civil War for at least since Obama was elected, probably as far back as the Clinton years. And it was easy to laugh, conjuring images of obese, older white men (and a few women) riding their hover-rounds in formation, with big old guns strapped across their backs to compensate for. . .shortcomings.

They're always a combination of vague on reasoning and solutions, and OCD-levels of detailed on their conspiracy theories. They can belch out long strings of data about what the government has done that aggrieves them. It's barnacled with half-truths, supposition, illogic, lies and loads of Alex Jones' InfoWars tinfoil-hat conspiracy crap. Do you see the meme posted here? It's culled from the Facebook page of one of my mother's conservative friends. It has more than a half dozen errors in it. Here are the ones I'm aware of:

- The Bureau of Land Management was created by FDR in 1946, which pre-dates 1964 by 18 years.
- The Hammonds were accused of setting at least one of the fires to cover up poaching crimes.
- Their fires spread to federally owned land. Which is. . .federal land. . .even if portions of it were being leased by the Hammonds.
- The charge was arson, not "terrorism."

That gun is pointing at the Feds. No one was shot. Isn't that something?Image from Business Insider.

- They weren't charged with "terrorism" again, or ever.
- The BLM didn't send them to prison, a judge did, after a jury found them guilty.
- They were sentenced to complete their original mandatory minimum sentence, as the original judge didn't follow the correct sentencing guidelines.

To top it all off, the Hammonds themselves willingly turned themselves in. They don't support these yahoos in their "freedom fight." The Bundy family and their allies are not from Oregon, either. In fact, it would seem that the Bundy family--not content with their conservative fame when they held of the Feds at gunpoint and miraculously weren't fired upon--is simply spoiling for a fight. They're looking to start that insurrection the conservative whack-a-doodles have been promising for so long. By taking over a closed bird sanctuary. Ooh, how daring. But they are armed and dangerous, I suppose. Idiots strapped to the tits with weaponry usually are. And one can't help but wonder if they would even still be breathing if they were any other group, taking over a government installation with weapons. Any other color, specifically, but I imagine even any other religion, any other political ideology, any other kind of lethal weapons, rather than guns. I suspect we'd have nuked the site from orbit, metaphorically speaking.

But the meme above is eaten whole by people like my mother's friend. They'll immediately believe anything that seems to comport with their politics. They'll somehow blame it on Obama. And they'll insist Trump is the answer. And I'm sure The Donald would insist that he is too! Because he's just as vague but certain as they are.

[Excerpt]Bundy Boys Promise To Hold Refuge Until People 'Claim It'

Wow, talk about a nanny state. For all the proclamations about liberty and freedom, Ammon Bundy is behaving like a protective grandma. . .Read more at: Crooks and Liars